Can Comics Help the United Nations Save the World?

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Reading With Pictures In Project to Educate the World About the United Nations’ Global Goals.

Comics Uniting Nations

The comics industry is a natural creative partner to develop informative and entertaining content, particularly for young people.

Chicago, IL (PRWEB)June 02, 2015

While the movie box office may be ruled by live action adaptions of comic books, comic books themselves are stepping into a new role: that of educational tool.

Comics Uniting Nations plans to produce educational comics in multiple languages that will explain the United Nations' forthcoming Global Goals for Sustainable Development - an international effort to address humanity’s most pressing challenges such as extreme poverty, hunger, health, education, sustainable energy, inequality, climate change and more.

“The United Nations has worked in collaboration with the film, radio and television industries for years,” said Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division, UN Department of Public Information. “The comics industry is a natural creative partner to develop informative and entertaining content, particularly for young people. Comics Uniting Nations is an exciting new initiative that can help us engage support around the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals to be agreed by governments in September.”

The materials produced by Comics Uniting Nations will be one of the central pieces of learning content distributed via The World’s Largest Lesson, communicating the Global Goals across different languages, cultures and literacy levels. The comics will be made available for free in print and for digital view and download from mobile platforms -- potentially sharing the UN’s Global Goals with hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

"The Global Goals are critical to the future of the planet, and illustrating the roles young people everywhere can play and inspiring them into action is essential to achieving the goals on a global level," said Natabara Rollosson, Co-Founder of Comics Uniting Nations.

Comics Uniting Nations, a collaboration between Reading With Pictures, PCI Media Impact, PVBLIC Foundation and Project Everyone, is bringing together an international coalition of comic creators to spread awareness about the Global Goals by creating a series of informational and inspirational comics in at least 11 languages.

“Reading With Pictures was founded on the belief that comics are a kind of universal visual language, one that’s ideal for communicating important concepts to diverse audiences,” Josh Elder, Founder of Reading With Pictures, explained. “Concepts don’t get any more important than the Global Goals, and audiences don’t get any more diverse than the entirety of the human race.”

About the Overseeing Organizations
Project Everyone, the campaign to make famous The Global Goals for Sustainable Development, was founded by Richard Curtis, filmmaker and founder of Comic Relief. Project Everyone aims to get the Global Goals to as many people as possible when they are launched on September 25th. (http://www.project-everyone.org/)

Reading With Pictures is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that promotes the use comics in education in order to improve learning outcomes for all students. They get comics into schools, and they get schools into comics. (http://www.readingwithpictures.org)

PCI Media Impact is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that empowers communities worldwide to inspire positive social and environmental change through storytelling and creative communication. (http://www.mediaimpact.org)

PVBLIC Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that amplifies the impact of limited media budgets. (http://www.pvblic.org)